A lesson for Kevin Buck in socialism

In his column “We are all in this together,” (June 25 of The Signal), Kevin Buck writes that what conservatives are calling socialism is just government doing the job it was created to do.

He then goes on to enumerate a long list of things government at various levels provides as his rationalization for the comment.

The problem is this: He somehow forgot to mention an even longer list of government activities that fall clearly into the realm of socialism. Since I’m sure that this was a simple lapse of Buck’s memory, I think I’ll help him out a bit:

- Wealth redistribution, such as stealing all the bond equity of General Motors investors and turning it over to unions during the auto industry bailout.

- Forcing people to purchase a product against their will — health insurance — under penalty of being fined by the IRS, the goal of which was to finance government-sponsored insurance for the poor, another form of wealth redistribution. It’s known as Obamacare.

- Stealing people’s homes and turning them over to developers so they can build commercial properties with a higher tax base (Kelo v. New London).

- Tax penalties and surcharges on productive people the rich as being constantly redefined downward in order to finance a bloated and essentially bankrupt system of social services.

Basically that’s inequitable taxation, a cardinal sin in a system in which all people are supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law.

- Rent control policies that deprive property owners of the right to charge fair market values for the properties they lease to others, forcing them to essentially subsidize other individuals.

- Draconian EPA edicts that deprive property owners of their rights to use their own land as they see fit.

I don’t know, Kevin. Does any of that sound like socialism to you? It sure does to me.